“Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now.”
If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he certainly was.
“You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition,” I allowed.
“And why, Lucy, can’t you look and feel as I do—buoyant, courageous, and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manœuvre.”
“If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?”
“I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one thing—true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no less a price.”
“Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while since.”
“Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave! but I am a free man now!”
He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was more than ease—a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
“Miss Fanshawe,” he pursued, “has led me through a phase of feeling which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much disposed to exact love for love—passion for passion—and good measure of it, too.”